Celtics stumbling around at the one-quarter mark of the season

Sunday

With a mediocre 10-10 record, a season that began with so much promise six weeks ago is starting to feel like it is slipping away from the Celtics.

They are now roughly one quarter of the way through the 2018-19 regular season, a season that began with so much optimism.

Six weeks ago, the Celtics were the nearly consensus pick to make it through the Eastern Conference and play in the NBA Finals next June.

What could possibly go wrong?

They had reached the conference finals last spring, losing in Game 7 to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward were being added to the mix.

Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier would have a year of experience playing prime roles under their belts, making the Celtics even stronger than they were supposed to be last season before Hayward was injured on opening night.

What could possibly go wrong?

The answer, 20 games into the season that began with such hope, is just about everything is going wrong.

The Celtics look like an average team and sometimes a well-below average team heading into the finale of a three-game road trip Monday against the New Orleans Pelicans (8:05 p.m., TV: NBC Sports Boston; radio: WROR-FM/105.7).

They are 10-10, a spot no one figured the Celtics would be at this juncture, and they have shown very few signs of shaking out of that mediocrity.

The last two seasons, the Celtics overachieved and went to the conference finals where they lost to LeBron James and the Cavaliers. They had Isaiah Thomas putting on quite a shot in the 2016-17 season to get them that far, and last year, the Celtics overcame the losses of Hayward and Irving to put together a surprising run.

This season, the fight that those two teams showed just isn’t there.

Perhaps they thought things would come easy this season with Irving and Hayward back. Perhaps the lack of chemistry just can’t be solved. Perhaps the expectations are too much for the Celtics to handle.

Whatever the case, something is going on with these Celtics, and it’s no longer safe to say it’s too early to worry. The season is roughly a quarter of the way over, and the Celtics have some major issues.

“We don’t impose our fear and will on teams,” Marcus Smart told reporters after Saturday night’s 113-104 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. “Last year, teams when they came in and played the Celtics, they knew they were in for a fight. This year, teams can’t wait to play us and that’s a problem.’’

There have been bad losses already, like home defeats to the Orlando Magic, the Utah Jazz and the New York Knicks.

The Celts followed a four-game winning streak by stumbling through a 1-4 western swing, the only win coming in overtime against the woeful Phoenix Suns, thanks to a Marcus Morris late 3-pointer at the end of regulation and a marvelous performance by Irving.

The Celtics seemed to have picked up a springboard-type win, rallying past the Toronto Raptors in overtime on Nov. 16, only to lose three games in a row, including two at home.

That is not the way championship-caliber teams respond, and the Celtics are far from a championship-caliber team one quarter of the way in.

The Celtics began Sunday six games behind the Raptors (16-4) in the conference and were nearly as close to last place in the conference (ahead of the Atlanta Hawks by 6/1-2 games) than they were to the top spot. And they will likely be without Brown Monday night as he is doubtful with a sore back following a fall Saturday.

And if their play on the court wasn’t disappointing enough, the status of their potential first-round draft picks next June isn’t looking good, either.

The Celtics could receive picks from the Sacramento Kings, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Memphis Grizzlies, but prior to Sunday, all three teams had better records than Boston.

Will the Celtics’ fortunes change during the second quarter of the season? Will they be in better shape when the halfway mark arrives on Jan. 10 in Miami? Or will they still be stuck in mediocrity, trying to find answers as the season with so much promise keeps slipping away?

The schedule does turn a bit in the second quarter of the season with more home games than road games after having just eight of the first 20 at the TD Garden.

But as the losses to the Knicks and Magic showed, it doesn’t matter the venue. When the Celtics are bad, they are really bad, firing up too many 3-pointers, looking clueless on offense and being unable to stop guards Jamal Murray, Donovan Mitchell, Kemba Walker, Trey Burke and J.J. Barea from going on a scoring roll.

At this time last year, the Celtics had just finished a 16-game winning streak that followed a 0-2 start. They had recovered quickly from the devastating Hayward injury and were 17-3 one quarter of the way into the season.

There was a toughness and a focus about that team that would carry over through the winter and into the spring.

That toughness and focus has been absent through one quarter of this season, a season that has taken on an eerie feeling.

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